Since the New Year, I took our juicer out and it's been sitting on the counter so we can have freshly-made juice every day. Today I extracted juice from carrots, and since I hate wasting, I used the carrot shreds and baked a cake.

To ensure the cake was moist, I added crushed pineapple (I regularly cut whole fresh pineapple as a snack) and used creme fraiche that my friend Steve from the Milk Pail in Mountain View gave us. Steve just introduced me to a new product his friend Warren from Snowville Creamery from Ohio sent over. It’s amazing! If you’re in the Bay Area, definitely take some time to visit the Milk Pail and try out some of the unique products only they carry.

This is my interpretation of mash ki dal, which is traditionally a lentil dish made from tikki dal. For this version, I prepared it with pearled barley, which I think has a marvelous texture that works well for the dish. I soaked the barley overnight so the grains were fully hydrated.

The rest of the preparation consists of a few coarsely chopped tomatoes, dried red chiles, thinly sliced ginger and chopped coriander. It's nutritious, tasty and not that complicated. Perfect for our family's dinner meal!

I'll be in Los Angeles this weekend sharing samples from my latest cookbook, Banh Mi, at a pre-party for the Golden Globes. Stay tuned for pictures!

In Vietnamese, "tương muối ớt lá chanh" would literally translate to "sauce salt chile lime leaves". It's a spicy sauce I came up with by using the kaffir lime leaves from our garden. They're so fragrant and very useful in Asian cuisine. I usually use them for making broth, but this time, I blended them with fresh green chiles, coarse sea salt, garlic, limes and a little sugar to balance the flavor of the sauce. I used it as a spicy dipping sauce for crab that I simply steamed.

It's crab season so I stocked up on a lot of crabs that I cracked and stored in sealable bags for making crab cakes and soups in the future.

If you have the space to plant a kaffir lime tree and you're into Asian cooking, go for it; it's a good investment. Plus the plant doesn't take too much space and it's almost maintenance-free.

This type of preparation is my favorite way to go when I buy an amazing quality cut of beef, such as filet mignon. I simply seasoned both sides of the filet mignon with salt and pepper, pan-seared until a crust formed and completed the roasting in the oven.

The key to perfection was to let the meat rest for a few minutes before slicing. The last step was making a sauce au poivre (whole peppercorn sauce) and placing the slices of beef on top like a fan. This was heavenly scrumptious. You can pair the meat with your favorite potato side dish, which can be found in my first cookbook, Haute Potato available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

First of all, I would like to send you my best wishes for the New Year, and i hope this week has started as well for you as it has for me.

I've been extremely busy preparing for the promotion of my second cookbook, Banh Mi. As I mentioned last week, 2014 seems to be starting with a bang. I'm doing a Golden Globes Luxury Gifting Suite at the beginning of the year and copies of Banh Mi will be included in the celebrity "swag bags." Celebrities will be photographed on the red carpet at the suite with the Banh Mi book and I will be serving a few dishes from my cookbook. I'm so excited!

For the first Meatless Monday of the new year, I went for a super easy Indian vegan dish called lobia dal. It's an especially simple lentil bean dish if you use frozen black eyed peas. The rest of the ingredients consist of chickpea flour (besan), cumin, chiles, tamarind and curry leaves. I served it with warm roti (Indian flat bread), gur (jaggery, which is palm sugar; it tastes similar to flavorful brown sugar) and garlic chutney to complete the meal.